New Sam Hoffman RCA Theremin Vid

Here is a new video featuring Samuel Hoffman’s RCA, along with its recently restored and installed RCA 106 Radiola Loudspeaker.

If you look carefully at the inside of the RCA cabinet, on the lower tier, just to the left of the power supply, you can see where the RCA 106 Radiola is plugged into the AC jack designed into all RCAs specifically to power the speaker. I deliberately left the new, white, rubber plug and cord as is, to distinguished them clearly from all the other cloth and fiber-wrapped wiring in the instrument which is original.

Unfortunately, the 106 apart from producing “the” sound that the instrument was intended to produce, also produces a low frequency buzz. According to Andrew Baron (who has had quite a bit of experience with these speakers) this is normal for the Radiola. In a live performance, with an accompaniment and an audience several meters from the player, this buzz is not noticeable but with a microphone just a few inches from the speaker, as it is in a modern audio or video recording situation like this video, it is quite annoying.

I mike this theremin with an Audio-Technica studio microphone, which goes directly into a MILLENNIA STT-1 (which also phantom powers the mike). This device, which uses vacuum tube technology, allows me to remove the buzz before the signal is output to the audio recorder, and it does this very gently without altering the pure sound of the instrument. One of the many wonderful things about the STT-1 is that it can surgically remove specific frequencies with no identifiable collateral acoustic damage or sonic “holes” or gaps in the frequency range.

What is left is a sound that is, IMNSFHO, quite pure and spectacular, particularly in the upper-mid and upper octaves. And with the Radiola, we are presumably hearing the sound that Lev Termen intended for his RCA theremin. Hope y'all enjoy!

I don’t use the compressor when I put the theremin through the MILLENNIA STT-1. I use only the EQ functions. When I do vocals, however, I do use the compressor and the “De-esser” to reduce sibilance.

Those extended baroque trills, as you may have noticed in the video, use a different set of muscles from the normal vibrato. It’s a different motion altogether but you have to be able to engage it and release it in a microsecond. It’s tricky, and it takes a lot of tension and pure muscle power. The danger with the technique is that if you’re not careful, the theremin being what it is, it can sound like IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE.

BTW, you’re right. I wrote the “baroque” air myself just for fun. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a little more 19th century romantic than I had hoped. It took me no longer to write the thing than it did to play it. First, I sang it “a cappella”, totally improvised on the spot, and in a single take I recorded it directly to a Roland VS-2400. I then went back and added the synthesized continuo, overdubbed a string pad, and then replaced the vocal with the theremin while videotaping.

It all has to be done in one fell swoop. If I let 24 hours go by, I will not remember anything at all the next day, and will have to learn the piece as if it had been written by someone else. It’s weird, but I’m probably not the only person who experiences this. Improvisations of this sort are terrific fun to do, but they are committed to short term memory only. It’s sort of like a dream that you recall when you wake up, but by the afternoon of the same day it’s completely gone.

It's wonderful synthesis of Galant Style plus a "je ne sais quoi" that just makes it totally charming especially with all those chromatic resolutions - and to be able to just improvise a tune like that is pretty amazing. I can't get that opening out of my mind. It might be suggestive of a style, but in reality it's actually quite a unique and surprising tune. God help me, I'm rummaging through Ditters von Dittersdorf as we speak (his Harpsichord Concerto does the same thing to me your piece does).

I know exactly what you are saying. How many times have I improvised something in the morning telling myself, "I'll write that down when I get home". That's a laugh - get home? It's gone by the time I get to work. Sometimes I keep a zoom pocket recorder going when I'm diddling around, but usually forget that too.

I've been trying a trill technique different from yours. Instead of the quick vibrato, I actually shake my open hand back and forth from the wrist. Seems to work OK and I can get a faster though maybe less controlled shake going than I can with a closed hand.

By the way - that ancient Sumerian (or whatever it was) vocal chant with the harp you built was pretty amazing too.

Rich

P.S. - And the piece needs a name (unless "The Theremin Goes Baroque" is it - I've already broken two myself). Which brings up the question what are you doing with all these theremin pieces you write? You planning on selling them for people that want to perform them? This piece is a winner for practice with all those wide chordal motions (and stepwise motion is not easy as it seems as there is no way out if you get off - I prefer some jumps).

The more daring the composition you play (such as Mozart’s QUEEN OF THE NIGHT aria, or BOOGIE-WOOGIE BUGLE BOY) the more likely you are to hit a few sour notes, even if you are a relatively competent thereminist. If you choose pieces that are safer, things you can perform without any danger of derailing (PIE IESU or GREENSLEEVES or any number of works from the New Age repertoire) you risk putting your audience to sleep. The intervals between notes in pieces like these are consistently small, tempi are slow, and melodies are often in long, languid, drawn-out half notes and quarter notes. Play a few of these in succession and anyone who is left awake will probably have headed for the exit half an hour ago!

One of the complaints of critics who attended theremin demonstrations in the 20’s and 30’s was that the music was dirgey and slow. One English journalist wrote of a concert in London in 1927: “……Spontaneous applause greeted his (Leon Theremin’s) first experiment, followed by subdued murmurs of ‘How does he do it?’ ‘Is it a fake?’ and ‘I hope he’s going to play something gay.’ …..He played nothing gay.” (quoted from Glinsky).

Some theremin music, such as Samuel Hoffman’s 1949 album PEACE OF MIND (which was referred to in those days as “intermission music”), is designed to be relaxing. Frankly, Hoffman’s nervous vibrato and “jumpy” theremin technique are anything but relaxing! On the contrary, his music is perfectly suited to suspense and horror, which is precisely where the good doctor had his greatest success.

Anyone who wants to perform a theremin composition of mine is welcome to do so, as long as they are not making money from it. Several people have already done this and some have even transcribed the works for other instruments. No problem.

Did you know that there is an original composition for theremin by Satie?…….not Erik Satie…… Starfleet Rear Admiral Norah Satie, daughter of judge Aaron Satie…..but honest injun! You’d swear the thing was by Erik….😄